Oregon government wants to control health care costs because, well, Oregonians would appreciate it.

The state has a growth rate target to try to keep increases at no more than 3.4% per person a year.

The Oregon Health Authority announced Wednesday that most health insurance plans, hospital systems and medical groups limited cost increases between 2021 and 2022. But “three health care organizations had unreasonably high-cost growth.”

Other organizations also were found to have exceeded the 3.4% growth. It’s allowed, though, as long as the state determines they had a legitimate excuse, such as increased enrollment and use of Medicaid.

The three entities that were found to not have good excuses were Moda Health’s Medicare Advantage with an 11.6% increase, UHC Company’s Medicare Advantage Insurance plans with a 6.4% increase and Oregon Medical Group in Eugene with a 6.5% increase for patients on commercial health insurance. The Moda plan has been discontinued, so really we are talking about two entities.

Oregon’s health care target growth rate comes with teeth. Entities can face financial penalties for exceeding the growth rate if they don’t have good reasons. The health authority can start penalties in 2026, if an entity consistently fails to stay under the target.

We’d like to simply spell out what the penalties might be — and we can’t. It is a complicated formula. We looked it up in the Oregon Rules. It basically depends on the size of the organization and how much it exceeds the target, explained Franny White, who is with Oregon Health Authority communications.

“If for three out of five full years, starting this year, they exceed it without a reasonable or acceptable reason, that’s when they could get penalized,” she said. “We’re hoping it won’t get to that point.”

The penalties have been questioned. Paying penalties doesn’t make it easier to keep costs under control. It increases costs for the entity. That could hurt patient care. Health care organizations pushed back against the penalties for that reason, the uncertainty they create and more.

We have to wonder how health care entities are responding to the target. Is it truly helping? It should, right? Is it having unintended consequences?

The Oregon Health Policy Board, the policy-making board overseeing the Oregon Health Authority, is in the process of creating a new committee to specifically look at issues of affordability. We have to think one thing it will be looking at is the health care cost target.